Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture
Kyle Chayka
A history and investigation of a world ruled by algorithms, which determine the shape of culture itself. From trendy restaurants to city grids, to TikTok and Netflix feeds the world round, algorithmic recommendations dictate our experiences and choices. The algorithm is present in the familiar neon signs and exposed brick of Internet cafes, be it in Nairobi or Portland, and the skeletal, modern furniture of Airbnbs in cities big and small. more
290 pages, Kindle Edition
First published Doubleday
3.86
Rating
366
Ratings
75
Reviews
Kyle Chayka
3 books 179 followers
Community reviews
This is a perfect pick for a book club. It’s a sprawling look at the impacts of algorithmic supremacy, both through technology and society, that take the reader for an introspective journey into dissecting our tastes, emotions, and inescapable presence on the internet. more
"Filterworld. a black hole of normalcy. ”I often wonder why it is that algorithms almost never seem to fit me. It doesn't matter what the recommendation or ad is for, I have zero interest in 99% of what is shown to me. It seems like they work very well for other people. more
Brilliantly constructed and argued. This is a fascinating and terrifying dissection of the vapidity of culture ruled by algorithms. I loved how this centered on the necessary humanness of personal choice and taste, opposing passive consumption. A book that I’ve been looking for without exactly realizing it. If you’re reading this, you should read Filterworld. more
"Algorithms dictate the websites we find in Google Search results; the stories we see on our Facebook feeds; the songs that Spotify plays in never-ending streams; the people we see as potential matches on dating apps; the movies recommended by the Netflix home page; the personalized feed of videos presented by TikTok; the order of posts on Twitter and Instagram; the folders our emails are automatically sorted into; and the ads that follow us around the Internet. Algorithmic recommendations shape the vast majority of our experiences in digital spaces by considering our previous actions and selecting the pieces of content that will most suit our patterns of behavior. They are supposed to interpret and then show us what we want to see. "Filterworld was a somewhat decent look into the topic, but I felt that the intro was the high water mark of the book. I was excited to start this one and see where the author would take the writing. more
This sounds very relevant to my new project, in which we are trying to curate the internet. . more
I agree with other reviewers who mentioned that this book feels like multiple contradictory books in one. I think that it's tempting to agree that culture is becoming something more homogenous when drawn into the Stanley cup craze on TikTok, but the author's arguments for homogeneity are underdeveloped and confusing at times. He dwells heavily on the "coffeeshop aesthetic" that many of us associate with hipster coffeeshops and questions how coffeeshops scattered all over have the same look and feel. While I think it seems like an interesting jumping off point on the surface, the answer is probably far stupider-trends and marketing. Trends are nothing new, and they existed long before algorithms were 'telling' us what to like or do. more
4. 5 stars. A deep, critical examination into how algorithms have influenced culture, in a way that feels very, very real. Will have you rethinking how you interact with the internet world and how it interacts with you. more
ironically the act of writing & rating this book here is both equally for and against the spirit of the book, but it's such a banger I can't help but feel compelled to recommend it to all the pals - especially if you're a regular user of IG/Twitter/Youtube/TikToki've been off the worst of these platforms for several months now and it's vindicating to have someone articulate so thoughtfully many of the feelings i've been noticing (mainly in myself) as my brain adjusts to life without addictive algorithms. more
Although I knew a lot about how algorithms shape what content we consume before reading, this book articulated a lot of the problems I'd been having with online content. It crystallized the reasons why I intensely dislike short-form video feeds, for example. It also explained for me why, say, all the gaming YouTubers play the same games, or all the BookTubers talk about the same books. The idea that we can resist A. I. more
A right place, right time kind of book for me - also this is the longest book review I’ve ever written but I think it’s worth a least a skim :,) I’d been feeling jaded about the internet and how much time I spent on it. This helped me understand why the algorithm was making me feel this way. Nothing on these platforms are personal - they will corner you into specific interest categories which prevent users from identifying their own individual tastes. The algorithm will do this for you and it will do it with the shortest and most attention grabbing content. This prioritizes content that doesn’t require complex thinking or allow users the time to sit with the subject. more
long-winded and underwhelming. felt like a lot of low-hanging-fruit critiques that didn’t add much of an interesting perspective on the topic. more
cool book not really new information for anyone who is terminally online already but interesting anecdotes throughout to keep you engaged . more
*3. 5 Filterworld is an interesting look at algorithms and how they affect our online experience. I was hoping for more of a deeper dive into the political/philosophical ramifications and was a bit more disappointed on that end. more
I will first say that this book has truly changed my online consumption…and has had a lasting impact on how I think about and use the internet. But while I appreciated learning about alternative online movements (particularly the suggestion that online consumption follow in the footsteps of the slow food movement) governmental policy regarding social media, and light mentions of ways to move forward in an algorithm-pervasive world, I didn’t love Filterworld. I found it a tad too repetitive, nostalgic, and not comprehensive enough. Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more as the memoir of someone who had been very online and how that online has changed/is changing us. Or maybe if it had only been a history of algorithms with more about policy and what we can do to further those actions…or perhaps a how-to with more actionable ways of dealing in a world that isn’t getting less algorithmic. more
Wow. A beautiful and thought provoking dissection of algorithms. The book opened on a high note with a conversation about the Mechanical Turk, wove through a variety of topics related to algorithms and culture (including the impact to music, the rise of the influencer, etc), and wrapped up neatly talking about curation. The conversation on curation is honestly what landed this book at 4. 5 stars for me. more
3. 5 Rounded up I was one of the first on Facebook. I remember it came out when I was in college and I remember vividly one of my friends telling me about it and telling me to sign up. Then I remember telling lots of other friends to sign up. I feel like I should have had a cut of Facebook's earnings (2. more
Gr8. I feel like all my cultural consumption, at present, revolves around anti algorithm conversation. I like that, but as someone who isn’t on social media a whole bunch, I feel it feeding into my already burgeoning resentment for modern technology. I won’t stop using Spotify or many other streaming sites but I can promise myself to be more intentional with my cultural consumption. I still believe TikTok is a scourge on mankind but that was only reinforced by this book. more
The fact that this ends with Chayka essentially saying "imagine if you made a choice about the books/movies/TV/music you consume, you may actually grow some taste and a sense of self" is just amazing, no notes. If you've ever wondered why everything sucks now, nothing inspires, and everyone seems to be watching/reading/listening to the same banal stuff, oh boyyyyy do I have a book that will make you hella depressed. Luckily, Chayka makes a compelling case for becoming our own curators, a rousing end to a book that did give me a mild panic attack. more
Had me running around the apartment reading passages aloud to my boyfriend with concerning vigor. Chayka def verges on “old man yelling at cloud” at some points but if you let him finish he gets there eventually. Definitely has me thinking about my relationship with ~the algorithm~ as someone who has grown up in an internet almost entirely associated with it. Also the third book I’ve read in 2024 that references Rachel cusk I fear I have a type……. And bonus points for the DC references <3 <3 <3. more
Fascinating and something everyone who uses anything based on an algorithm should read. Definitely makes me want to be more mindful of my media consumption habits. more
Good exposition on how algorithms work to filter what people see in social media. Chayka also discusses in detail how algorithms effectively shape culture by forcing a common denominator effect by driving people to whatever is most popular. Chayka's solution is curation--adopting a curation mind-set. My solution is simpler--avoid social media like the plague. . more
**Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC**As a relatively computer-dumb person who just accepts all terms and conditions, this was a really readable history that was informative in a nice way. It's definitely something I didin't want to know about but i'm glad I finally read about how it all works and the history and use of algorithms. It feels academic, but at the same time is digeestable, which to me is the greatest compliment I can give. more
I picked this up after hearing Ezra Klein's interview with Chayka, which is a good substitute if you don't want to read this whole book (though I think the book is worth reading. ) There are some brilliant ideas in this book and a lot to ponder. (Though there is way too much contemplation of industrial design in coffee shops around the world, which honestly seems like the least solid argument for the flaws of Filterworld. but don't worry, the more serious problems are discussed as well. ) I found it inspiring rather than depressing, Chayka's love of culture really comes through, as well as his love of the Internet as a way to find culture. more
How can I compose a review without coming across as antiquated and without beginning with "Back in my day, the internet landscape was different. ". This book is pretty packed, focusing on various social media platforms and how they shape our modern culture. It's got loads of anecdotes and examples, so much so that I found myself breezing through some of them (especially the ones that didn't click with my millennial sensibility, hah). Some of the examples feels like personal attack, the one with "generic coffee shops" for example, ouch. more
Thank you #partner @doubleday for sending an early copy of this book and coordinating with me to host an author interview. I'll link it here when it's posted. “Social media has quantified culture into a banal set of metrics. The net effect is a homogenization as creators all chase the same incentives, copying whatever formula works best at any given moment. ”Wow. more
“Filterworld and its slick sameness can induce a breathtaking, near-debilitating sense of anxiety. The sameness feels inescapable, alienating even as it is marketed as desirable. ” “On the other side of our algorithmic anxiety is a state of numbness. The dopamine rushes become inadequate, the noise and speed of the feeds overwhelming. Our natural reaction is to seek out culture that embraces nothingness, that blankets and soothes rather than challenges or surprises, as powerful artwork is meant to do. more
In many ways this feels like a must-read, but the longer it went on, the more I thought the author undermined his own arguments. His descriptive passages about the progression of various social media platforms was spot-on, but his suggestions for how to escape "Filterworld" often seemed kind of banal (as if downloading Bandcamp and The Criterion Channel are all it takes to appreciate art again). I wished he had leaned into ways to use these algorithms to our advantage, rather than simply wishing things would go back to how they were in the past. While he does briefly acknowledge how nostalgia plays a factor, but never really explains why or how things in the past were better (just that he has fond memories of certain things he found before algorithms) and this failure to engage honestly with the past is probably Filterworld's biggest weakness. For example, he goes on quite a bit about similarly styled cafes but never gives any convincing explanation for why this is bad, or how things were better before cafes started to look the same. more
this is a truly excellent 300 page book that could have been a world-changing 180 page bookthere is a lot of yapping (inc. a deeply irrelevant soliloquy of his favourite animes growing up), some quite poncey flourishes and a few desperate appeals to walter benjamin and the frankfurt school that would have been very mic-drop in 2008-2012 academia and quite passe in 2013-2017 academia. chapters 1-4 are particularly excellent, but there is a lot of new, good vocabulary building throughout, 'content capital', 'consumption equity', 'feedback loops', 'content verticals' etc. that i use in my daily work (in social media) but not many people hear outside of thisi feel he definitely has a few blind spots - taste development requires middle-class levels of disposable income (hence bourgeoisie), most people do not have this and are buying shit plastic amazon crap because they feel compelled to have everything but can only afford it if it is 1-5% of their increasingly paltry monthly income. some aesthetics (stop trying to make airspace happen lol) are proliferated not as a conscious and purposeful statement against existing aesthetics and tastes, but because supply chains and cost realities. more
After catching Chayaka's interview on Ezra Klein's podcast, I was drawn to this book due to its exploration of a topic I've been diving into: the homogenization of algorithmic media. It discusses how content is aggregated, leading us to consume only what's popular, agreeable, or easy, and how this process is diminishing our cultural richness and our individual authenticity. The book offers practical advice on how to reclaim personal curation in our media consumption, such as making mindful choices, valuing word-of-mouth recommendations, or changing the way we engage with art, like buying physical albums to engage more deeply with an musicians entire work. Chayaka's background as a digital anthropologist and culture writer adds a layer of credibility to his insights and the book's thesis is well founded and supported. However, the writing style is very much that of a columnist, and outside the main arguments and anecdotes, the book falls short in motivating the reader towards change. more